Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword by Daniel Callahan
- Introduction
- 1 Euthanasia and the value of life
- 2 A philosophical case against euthanasia
- 3 The philosophical case against the philosophical case against euthanasia
- 4 The fragile case for euthanasia: a reply to John Harris
- 5 Final thoughts on final acts
- 6 Misunderstanding the case against euthanasia: response to Harris's first reply
- 7 Euthanasia: back to the future
- 8 The case for legalising voluntary euthanasia
- 9 Extracts from the Report of the House of Lords Select Committee on Medical Ethics
- 10 Walton, Davies, Boyd and the legalization of euthanasia
- 11 Where there is hope, there is life: a view from the hospice
- 12 Letting vegetative patients die
- 13 A case for sometimes tube-feeding patients in persistent vegetative state
- 14 Dilemmas at life's end: a comparative legal perspective
- 15 Physician-assisted suicide: the last bridge to active voluntary euthanasia
- 16 Euthanasia in the Netherlands: sliding down the slippery slope?
- 17 Advance directives: a legal and ethical analysis
- 18 Theological aspects of euthanasia
- Index
13 - A case for sometimes tube-feeding patients in persistent vegetative state
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword by Daniel Callahan
- Introduction
- 1 Euthanasia and the value of life
- 2 A philosophical case against euthanasia
- 3 The philosophical case against the philosophical case against euthanasia
- 4 The fragile case for euthanasia: a reply to John Harris
- 5 Final thoughts on final acts
- 6 Misunderstanding the case against euthanasia: response to Harris's first reply
- 7 Euthanasia: back to the future
- 8 The case for legalising voluntary euthanasia
- 9 Extracts from the Report of the House of Lords Select Committee on Medical Ethics
- 10 Walton, Davies, Boyd and the legalization of euthanasia
- 11 Where there is hope, there is life: a view from the hospice
- 12 Letting vegetative patients die
- 13 A case for sometimes tube-feeding patients in persistent vegetative state
- 14 Dilemmas at life's end: a comparative legal perspective
- 15 Physician-assisted suicide: the last bridge to active voluntary euthanasia
- 16 Euthanasia in the Netherlands: sliding down the slippery slope?
- 17 Advance directives: a legal and ethical analysis
- 18 Theological aspects of euthanasia
- Index
Summary
Persistent vegetative state (PVS) is the name, coined by physicians and now widely used, of a specific condition of drastically impaired consciousness. That condition is characterized as ‘vegetative’ on the basis of the behaviour of patients, not of their underlying neurological disorder or disorders (Jennett 1993: 40). This behaviour includes the following features: The patient has periods of wakefulness and sleep, in contrast to patients in coma who are in a sleep–like condition. During the periods of wakefulness the patient exhibits reflex actions and can swallow small amounts of food and water by mouth, but does not exhibit voluntary action or psychologically meaningful interaction with the environment. Patients in a vegetative state breathe spontaneously (Institute of Medical Ethics Working Party 1991: 96–97).
Vegetative state can be transient, but it can persist. This persistence becomes medically and morally significant when the vegetative state continues long enough to justify an expectation that it will be permanent, that is, if the vegetative state continues to the point that there is no medical prospect that treatment will have any effect on the patient's severely impaired consciousness. The medical judgment that the vegetative state of any given patient is permanent is based on prospective trials and clinical observation; it depends on such considerations as the age and condition of the patient and the cause of the neurological disorder, not on direct observation of this disorder (Institute of Medical Ethics Working Party 1991: 96–97; Jennett 1993: 40–41).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Euthanasia ExaminedEthical, Clinical and Legal Perspectives, pp. 189 - 199Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995
- 6
- Cited by